My brother has even said he would take me to parties, though for now he avoids them because he wants to wait for Eddy Ho to cool off. He found out a couple of weeks ago that Eddy was alive and not crippled. Somehow his girlfriend heard about it at work. A week ago he heard that some of Eddy’s friends were looking for us, especially for Tomas. My brother showed up at a party in Culver City, at one of those modern apartment complexes which are impressive-looking from the outside but whose drywall is so paper-thin you can hear people in the next room breathing and fucking and on Friday or Saturday nights the muffled sound of parties going on throughout the building. Johnny Guerro, one of Eddy’s friends, was there and had a few words with Tomas. Luckily Tomas was with some friends, including Manny, who studies Thai boxing and Indonesian stick-fighting with Danny Inosanto, a Flip who teaches Kali in some warehouse in the ratty section of Marina Del Rey, and who was friends with Bruce Lee.

Nowadays Tomas does not let me sit out on the porch. He does not even like me to walk to the local store. Not that I want to. Even when I am at Saint Dominic’s waiting for our mother to pick me up, I keep close to the rectory door. I do not take the bus because the bus stop is a block from school, on Wilshire. And I have not gone to the basketball courts across from the church either.

All this time I felt bad that I did not feel worse about Eddy being hurt, that what I mostly worried about was whether his being wounded or crippled would get us in trouble.

Of course I also worried our mother would find out about Eddy Ho. I would study her expression to see if she knew anything, but she did not know anything yet, and still does not. I can tell.

Sometimes at night when I have to go to the bathroom I will pass her room and her door will be open. If there is moonlight I can make her out on the bed. It seems empty by Mom’s pillow where Buster used to sleep with her leg hanging off, and at her feet where her cats Saint Elmo and Sister Teresa used to curl up before Buster got to them. Sometimes I think about getting her a couple of new cats for company, but then I become afraid of what she might say when I give them to her, what the cats might remind her of. Sometimes she will be hugging her pillow against her cheek or chest.